The Whole Earth Chanting is a stunning musical work produced by the artist and quantum physicist Libby Heaney and the musician Nabihah Iqbal (Ninja Tune). Commissioned by Radar, this is the work's world premiere.
Against the all-too-frequent use of A.I. to divide and entrench the status quo, the work uses the power of voice, sound and the intimacy of performance to explore new expressions of belonging and collective identity between humans and non-humans.
During the performance, musician Iqbal will respond to chants generated by artificial intelligence, which was trained by Heaney on data ranging from Gregorian Chanting to the humming of equipment in the quantum physics lab. As religious chants blur with football fans’ singing, birds and Iqbal's voice, the boundaries of categories through which we usually understand the world are dissolved, creating a transcendental journey enabling the ‘other’ to enter and transform.